In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), an RF coil with a set of radiofrequency (RF) coils (coil array) or transverse electromagnetic (TEM) coil elements can be used to transmit and receive the signal in parallel through multiple channels. Such coils may further be used in combination with special acquisition and reconstruction techniques based on parallel transmit and/or receive to improve the homogeneity of the RF magnetic field B1 (RF shimming or B1 shimming) or to reduce the scan time (parallel imaging), respectively. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,598,739 and 7,800,368, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein. In addition, a separate set of coils (shim coils) can be used to generate a non-uniform magnetic field designed to compensate for any inhomogeneities of the static magnetic field B0 (active B0 shimming). See, Juchem C, Brown P B, Nixon T W, McIntyre S, Boer V O, Rothman D L, de Graaf R A. Dynamic multi-coil shimming of the human brain at 7 T. J Magn Reson 2011; 212:280-288; and Pan et al., Role of very high order and degree B0 shimming for spectroscopic imaging of the human brain at 7 Tesla, Mag. Res. In Med. 2011 Dec. 28, doi:10.1002/mrm.24122, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.